THE BEB-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



77 



Instead of discussiiii; the experiment I 

 made, I shonld prefer to let the matter 

 rest till next summer in the hope that 

 several niisht give their attention to the 

 prolilem, but your dictum in the matter 

 will have a tendency to discourage exper- 

 imenting in the same line, for you say 

 that the exptrimeut made makes it "nor- 

 mally certain that the tloctor's opponents 

 in the matter are in the right." When 

 one skilled in experimenting and in drav.'- 

 ing dedu v.ions therefrom makes such a 

 decision as that, people are not likely to 

 exert themselves very nmch to investigate 

 the truth of a generallj' accepted tradi- 

 tion. So I will try to give some reasons 

 why I do not see things exactly as you 

 do.' 



You mention three omitted points that 

 you think have an important bearing, 

 asking the questions: "Did the colony 

 have other combs without brood in the 

 lower story? Were the experimental 

 combs placed in the lower story or left in 

 the super? In what order were they ar- 

 ranged?" In reply, I may say that, so 

 far as I have observed, in this locality, if 

 the bees of a colony have no other brood 

 it doesn't matter whether the five frames 

 of brood are in the first or second story; 

 where the brood is, there the bees will be 

 assetnbled in sufficient numbers to care 

 for it. I don't see that the first two 

 questions have any bearing on the case. 

 The third question has in my opinion no 

 bearing either; but as you attach impor- 

 tance to it I will answer that they were 

 arranged as you supposed, in alphabeti- 

 cal order. 



You exhibit the number of cells in the 

 combs in this way: 



Comb a — o cells. 



" b — 5 cells. 



«. c— 17 " 



" d— 8 " 



" e— 6 " 

 and call attention to tlie large number in 

 the central comb. P.ut you do not call 

 attention to the fact that comb c was left 

 with the laying queen for the deposition 

 of eggs (as was told in ray article 1 a much 



longer time than either of the other 

 combs. And I noted that when a fresh 

 coTub was given for a queen to lay in, 

 she would lay more eggs in it during the 

 last half of the 24 or 48 hours than dur- 

 ing the first half, so it is not hard to un- 

 derstand that c in 42 hours could- have 

 more than twice as many eggs as b in 26 

 or d in 24 hours. 



July 8, a queen cell was found on comb 

 d while larvte less than three days old 

 were in comb c. (A typographical error 

 says this was the first queen cell on comb 

 b, but what preceeds and follows shows 

 it was d. ) In that case there was cer- 

 tainly no preference for the central comb. 

 July 12, queen cells were found on comb 

 e while larvae less than five days old were 

 in comb d. If the bees preferred too-old 

 larvse, why didn't they take those in d, 

 instead of going to the outside comb ? 



The bees were not compelled to build 

 on b the three cells found July 7, for 

 they could and did build on c before and 

 after. The same thing is true of the 

 three cells found on d July 10. Fortu- 

 nately I have had the opportunity to re- 

 fer the question to one of exceptionally 

 large experience in looking for queen- 

 cells, one who as many as a thousand 

 times in a season goes through the opera- 

 tion of searching through a hive for them. 

 The reply was in substance as follows: "I 

 don't think it's so much the position of a 

 comb as other things. For post-con- 

 structed cells the bees seem to prefer new 

 combs, and if such are in the hive they'll 

 find them, no matter where they may be 

 placed. For pre-constructed cells the 

 preference is for a comb with some irreg- 

 ularity or one with holes in it. I have 

 found such a comb next to the outside 

 comb with a dozen cells on it and scarcely 

 a cell elsewhere in the hive. Not so often 

 are cells found on the outside combs; not, 

 I suppose, bcause they are outside, 

 but because they are so often filled 

 with pollen and honey with no brood. 

 And yet I very often find cells on the out- 

 side combs. I remember one case the 

 past season where I found a cell ou the 



